Through the magic of Ikea, glue, nails, stain, and extra poplar wood in our storage shed, Damon has made us a pretty nice craft cabinet.

A while ago we went to Atlanta’s Ikea to buy six of the Fira small storage boxes. The one configured for nine small drawers reminded Damon of an apothecary chest, so he thought he could put together several of them to put our craft supplies in.

Damon put them together, attached them into one big piece, and then added some embellishments to give it a mission look and some legs to raise it off the floor. The drawers are stained this dark stain on one side, and a natural stain on the other. We have versatility as well as function.

I think it adds a nice touch to our living room, and I love knowing exactly where to go to find my scotch tape.

Technorati Tags: Ikea, Ikea hack, craft cabinet

Gardening requires lots of water - most of it in the form of perspiration. ~Lou Erickson

After the poison ivy scare of 2008*, I suited up in long sleeves and finished clearing out the mass of growth behind our house. I was left with a rather tidy spot of dirt that looked… dirty. It was blank and boring.

I had imagined we would have a flower or vegetable garden in this area. It wraps around the side of the house going from total shade to full sun, making it tricky to pick out the perfect inhabitants. And then there was the concept of keeping up with the stuff… I would have to water and weed, deadhead blooms and keep the three year old from mutilating the pretty ones.

I worked hard last Saturday. I went to Lowe’s (by myself!) to pick up various plants- annuals, perennials, herbs, and one tomato plant. When I got home Damon had to help me get the tiller going and then I prepared the soil. Eventually I got down to digging holes for the perennials, found flower pots for the annuals, and put the herbs in a strawberry pot. Damon took charge of making an upside down planter for the tomato plant.

Originally I was really excited about the hydrangea plants, because I have always thought hydrangeas would look good next to our house. And I look forward to cutting the flowers to bring in the house to spruce it up. I bought two that already had pink blooms. We will see if they stay pink or turn blue (it depends on the pH of the soil).

However, my excitement shifted to the Sentimental Blue Balloon Flowers we planted on the side yard. They require full sun, and their picture looked pretty on the plant tag. Within a day of putting them in the yard, the blooms were starting to puff up to look like balloons. As they got bigger, they started to turn blue, and today our first “balloon” popped open.

Small blooms like that make me think our garden will survive and maybe we do have a little bit of green in our thumbs.

*I am still not sure if it was poison ivy or not. But I prefer to be safer than sorry.

Technorati Tags: garden, flowers, hydrangea, tomato plant, upside down tomato plant, sentimental blue balloon flowers

Our family has been making strides in the “Go green” trend these days. We have switched out out lighting to compact fluorescents and LED (another post in itself). We use public transportation, bicycles, and walk a lot more than driving. We have started using reusable shopping bags. We have been weathering the recycling nightmare in our city by piling up the recyclables in an unsightly pile by the back door.

There are other ways we could continue with greener lives: using cloth napkins, no more paper towels (we are only partially able to do this), and using silk flowers in our household decorating.

I kill plants. I am staring at a withering African Violet right now. It was pretty, but then it came to my house. I just found tulip petals under my buffet, from tulips we had at Easter. These were nice for a while, but of course they died. I don’t have any other plants in my house, but apparently I should have some greenery in my house to balance the organic with the non-organic. I would be nervous adding plant life to my home decor. But, if I want to, I could take a look at silk plants.

It used to be you could tell fake plants from real ones very easily. But now, technology and artistry have really blurred the visual line in seeing the difference. I have found myself reaching out to touch leaves on ficus plants to see if they are real or silk.

Silk plants offer to protect from pollen allergies, but I imagine if you let the dust gather on your fake plants, dust allergies might kick up. So there is that to think about. Also, bugs are less attracted to fake plants, though I imagine spiders don’t care either way. But there is no watering, repotting, fertilizer, or pesticides to even consider. Unless my thumb literally turns green, I think I am going to have to look harder at silk plants for my green needs.

Technorati Tags: go green, silk plants

Ok, here are the pictures I promised.

First: the porch before we did anything to it. Obviously this is after the fence was built, but before we painted the fence. It is also before Damon started to raise the roof of the porch.

Second: the porch after it is built, but before the rails are painted.

And finally: the finished product. I am so proud of myself!

Now to figure out how to get someone to paint the rest of our house and will do it for nothing.

I woke up at 6:30 this morning. I just woke up and couldn’t get my mind turned off again to sleep another 30, 10, or even 5 minutes. Instead I gave myself a little talking to.

“Alicia, there is no reason you can’t get out on the front porch and finish it by Halloween. No reason. Get busy.”

And so, when Damon left for work this morning, I was busy taping down plastic tarps on the second half of the porch. I finished priming by noon. And then around 1:30 I started putting the light yellow color on. I just finished the first coat and I will do the second coat tomorrow and then add the dark yellow on the accent trim.

It should go much faster tomorrow because I won’t have to do the prep of taping down the plastic (the mental stumbling block that kept me from proceeding- I HATE prep work). I also have figured out how to get the really high parts without using the extension ladder, which is now I my list because I almost fell from it twice. (Look for future pictures of the bruise I expect to appear on my forearm in two days.) I did manage to dump a tray of primer onto the plastic during one of the falls. And both Fuller and Maple have accented their bodies with touches of yellow paint and white primer. My hands are a testament to my hard work today.

I think we are on track for having this project done by Wednesday. So exciting!

I haven’t been working on painting the front porch like I need to. I had a few set backs like rain and attitude. But the rain has subsided, the attitude has adjusted and hopefully tomorrow I will be able to get my grove on for painting. I still have the goal of having it all pretty by Halloween.

I also am going to pick up some LED Christmas lights since our front porch light is wonky. We put up regular Christmas lights last year, but LED uses 1/10th the energy and will last even longer.

And if we want to eventually switch out all our Christmas lights to LED, it needs to start with one strand. I can’t wait to show you pictures!

Saturday Damon and I did a mini clean sweep of our t-shirts. I keep getting organizational tips and inspiration from Clean House and decided I needed to start small.

Our t-shirts are pretty much a communal pile we grab from and are worn for a variety of situations- working on/ around the house, working under the house, and out and about. I had to divide the t-shirts first into long sleeve and short sleeve piles. Then I separated the t-shirts out into categories - 3HD related, Covenant College related, Chattanooga related, and other. Then we decided which ones are work around the house and which ones are to be worn out and about. While we did that we weeded out the ones we would never wear again, to be thrown away or given to charity. And finally, the most important step, we labeled the work shirts with a W on the tag or collar so we wouldn’t make the mistake of wearing a work shirt out and about.

I feel a lot better about this small bit of organization. Now I just need a better place to put them all. Like tool storage, this is something that needs to serve a specific purpose. I’m thinking a storage bench to go at the end of our bed or in a window seat we will be building in the remodel.

Now I just need to do the same with our paper clutter and I think I will be feeling better about our state of living.

My afternoons can be pretty much all mine when Fuller is napping. When he finally falls asleep he is out for about three solid hours. I usually end up cleaning, blogging, or cooking during that time (sometimes all at once!) and it is always with the TV on.

Since we upgraded our cable package to include ESPN and ESPN2, we got the added bonus of adding HGTV, TLC, Style, and other channels that feature home improvement/ decorating type shows (ie: shows Alli likes to watch ad naseum).

I’ve been studying at the school of HGTV these past few weeks and starting to day dream how to finish off and pull together our “finished” rooms. Staying at home all day staring at these walls really makes me want to like the walls I’m surrounded by.

Last week I finally hung up the four clocks in the living room and keep wondering what I can do next. The clocks added a certain punch to the room and I want to remain consistent. Yesterday I found a metal triangular shelf I thought would add something extra. And that is when I thought about metal wall hangings.

I’ve seen some of these types of hangings in stores, on decorating shows, and in other’s homes. The addition of contemporary metal wall art really adds an extra dimension to the decor, since it is a different material than what people usually have (wood) and can beef up a space with the largeness of the piece.

I love the artwork that is made up of many smaller pieces to create one big look (kind of like my clock project). The metal wall art available at Wall Decor & Home Accents has several of those types of pieces which would work in our home. And checking over their architectural section of the shop has really opened up my mind to even more possibilities- grills and architectural details as accessories and interest pieces.

The store is easy to navigate, making browsing as pleasant as shopping without a three year old. They deliver UPS or USPS and take all kinds of payment. If you sign up for their newsletter, you get an 11% off coupon in your email. And all orders over $100 qualify for free shipping!

I’m having fun adding certain touches to our home, slowly. And in time I know it will all be pulled together to make it really look like we finished a room.

I figure I finished about a quarter of the front porch priming today. I plan on working on another quarter tomorrow.

Recently I have been taking some house things into my own hands, since I am the one at home the most and sometimes I get a bit tired of waiting for Damon to do something. Or I think the project I want to do is supposedly so simple, asking Damon to do it isn’t really worth his talents.

I get a kick out of accomplishing the little tasks or having a hand in the big ones. I recently hung five clocks in our living room and I was really proud of myself for hammering those nails. And when we were doing our kitchen remodeling and I helped pour the concrete for the counter tops, I was really excited that I got to help.

We looked for a lot of information about making your own concrete counter tops, because we all know knowledge is power. The truth is we still aren’t too happy with the outcome of those countertops. We had top epoxy and polyurethane over the concrete to make it usable. Too bad we didn’t have DoitYourself.com to help us 7 years ago. We could have talked it out with forum members or even seeing the Do It Yourself DVD might have helped.

Someday we will have to do the countertops over, but for now, we are fine and it still functions well. And we have other projects to finish… like painting the porch. Wanna help?

I am happy to announce I have started the priming on the front porch painting project.

Remember the good times when we had no front porch or only half a front porch? Well, we have had a full front porch for a while now, complete with railings that need painting.

I still don’t know how it happened or why it happened, but somehow I became the one in charge of painting the front porch. I put it off all summer (the heat will kill me) and now that we have touched on cooler temperatures, I decided that painting the front porch is now possible. I want it complete before Halloween, so it looks nice for the trick or treaters.

As soon as Fuller was put down for his nap, I started the prep. Taping, dusting, wiping, cleaning, putting down plastic. I mixed the primer and got started. I didn’t get far, but I know I will get farther tomorrow. And when we get back from travel, I will get even farther. Baby steps… just don’t step in the paint.